解放军文职招聘考试 英语语言学笔记2

                  Chapter One    Introduction
1.1What is linguisticsss:
1.1.1Definition
1.linguisticss is generally defined as scientific study of language.
2.linguistics tries to answer basic questions about language. It tries to probe into various problems related to language.
3.linguistics studies not only particular languages, but also language in general.
4.linguistics is a scientific of language based on systematic study of data conducted with the reference to general theory of language structure
1.1.2Steps of scientific study
a.Collect and observe language facts
b.Formulate hypothesis
c.Check and prove the validity of the hypothesis
1.1.3The scope of linguisticss
1.General linguisticss: to study language as a whole, which deals with basic concepts and theory applied in any linguistics study
2.Branches of linguisticss
a.Phonetics(语音学)
The study of sounds used in linguistics communication, mainly the physical properties of a language.
b.Phonology（音位学）
The study of how sounds are put together to convey meanings
c.Morphology
The study of how symbols, which represent the sounds, are put together to form words. For example, with letters k,i,s,we can form words kiss,ski,which are different in meaning ,however, we can not form iks in English as an English word
d.Syntax
The study of the rules by which the words are put together to form grammatically accepted sentences
e.Semantics
The study of the meaning conveyed by the sentences or words
f.Pragmatics
The study of the meaning of the words or sentences in the context of language use rather than the meaning in isolation
g.Socialinguistics
The study of social aspects of language or the relationship between language and society 
(a). The language a person use reveals his social background.
(b). The language changes are always caused by the change of society. []
h.Psycholinguistics
It related the study of language to the study of psychology. It tries to answer
(a)How the minds work when people produce the language
(b)How infants acquire their mother tongue.
i.Applied linguistics
The study of language applications which solve the particular problems .For example language teaching and acquisition
1.1.4 Some important distinctions★:
A. Description and prescription
(1)Description and prescription are two types of language study. Description is the analysis of the language that people actually use.
(2)Prescription is to lay down the rules for correct and standard behavior in language use. It tells people what should say and should not say when using a language.
(3)Modern linguistics study is usually descriptive while old English is usually prescriptive
(4)Modern linguistics study is believed to be objective and scientific and the task for modern linguistics is to describe the language people use. Old English (Traditional Grammar) is to set rules for the correct using of language
B. Synchronic and diachronic
(1)Synchronic study is to study language at certain point of time in history while diachronic study is to study the historical development of language over a period of time. Diachronic study describe languages as they develop.
(2)Today, synchronic study is more popular because without synchronic study, diachronic study will be very difficult.
C. Speech and Writing
Modern linguistics regard spoken language as the primary medium of language, the reasons are as follows
(a). According to language revolution, speech is prior to writing. Writing is used for recording when it is necessary, and there are languages that do not have writing system
(b). Speech plays a more important role in terms of the message it conveys.
（c）.When acquiring mother tongue, spoken language is firstly acquired and
 writing is taught in school
(d).Speech reveals true features of a language but writing system is a record form of speech
D.Langue and parole
These two concepts were come up with by Saussure
1.Langue is the abstract linguistics system shared by all the members of a speech community. It is a set of rules that all the language users have to abide by.
2.Parole is the realization of langue in practical use. Parole is concrete and various from person to person. It refers to the naturally occurred of language events
3.Sausurre believed that parole is too confusing to be systematically studied and what linguistics study should do is to abstract langue from parole and linguists should study langue rather than parole.
E.Competence and performance
a)These two concepts were come up with by Chomsky. Competence is the ideal users’ knowledge of language while performance is the realization of the competence.
b)Chomsky believes that although speakers have acquire the rules for producing correct sentences, they will produce ungrammatical sentences due to personal or environmental reasons. Therefore, competence is what should be studied in linguistics study
c)索绪尔和乔姆斯基的理论比较：
Both Saussure and Chomsky believe that the abstract system shared by language users should be studied without the consideration of individuality The difference is Saussure view the abstract system from the social aspect (Langue) and believe that langue is a set of conventions for members to obey while Chomsky regard the abstract system as a property of mind and call it competence from psychological aspects.
F.Traditional grammar and modern linguistics
1 .The start of modern linguistics is the publication of Saussure’s Course in General linguistics
2. Differences between traditional grammar and modern linguistics
a. Traditional grammar is prescriptive but modern linguistics is descriptive
              b. Traditional grammar emphasizes written language while modern linguistics regards spoken language as the primary of a language
              c. Modern linguistics does not judge a language with the standard of another and English is not forced to the Latin form in modern linguistics.
1.2 What is language★
1.2.1 Definition of language
Language is a system of arbitrary and vocal symbols for human communication
a. Arbitrary: There is no connections between sounds and the meanings they stand for
b. Vocal: The primary medium for language is symbols
c. Human: Language is human specific
1.2.2Design Feature
a. Arbitrariness
  Arbitrariness means that there is no logical connections between meaning and sounds. A example is that different languages use different words for the same objects. Arbitrariness makes it possible for languages to have unlimited sources of expressions
b. Productivity
  Productivity means that language users can construct and interpret grammatically accepted sentences that have never been used before quickly. Productivity is human specific
c. Duality
Duality means that language has two levels sound level and meaning level. Sound level is a lower level without meaning. However, at the higher level, the sounds are grouped into small unites of meaning and then into sentences. An example is sounds like  /k/、/p/、/a:/ are meaningless but they can be arranged into / pa:k/ (park) or / ka:p/(carp)which are meaningful. Duality allows people to talk about anything within their knowledge
d.Displacement
Displacement allows people to talk about things which are removed from the immediate situation of the speakers. This property allows speakers to talk about things free from separation of time and space
e.Cultural transmition
Human capacity for language has a genetic basis ,i.e. we are born with the ability for acquiring language. However, the detail of a language is culturally transmitted by language teaching and learning

    

 

 

 

Chapter Two    Phonology
2.1 The phonic medium of language
(1). Speech and sound are two media used by natural language for communication
(2). Two thirds of languages do not have written forms today
(3). Linguists are interested in the sounds produced by speech organs and play an important role in linguistics communication.
(4). The meaningful sounds in human communication constitute the phonic media of language .The meaningful individual sound is called speech sound.
2.2 Phonetics
2.2.1 what is phonetics
A. Phonetics is the study of phonic media of language
B. Phonetics studies sounds from three related but distinct aspects.
a.Articulation phonetics(发声语音学): to study the sound from speakers’ point of view (how we produce sounds)
b.Auditory phonetics（听觉语音学）: to study sound from the hears’ point of view (how we hear sounds)
c.Acoustic phonetics（语音传播学）: to study how sound is transmitted by looking at sound waves
d.Articulatory phonetics has the longest history among three branches. Acoustic phonetics studies physical properties of sounds with spectrographs（频谱仪）
2.2.2 Organs of speech:
  The articulatory apparatus contains pharyngeal cavity(咽腔), oral cavity（口腔） and nasal cavity（鼻腔）
1. Pharyngeal cavity
① Glottis(声门) is the first place where sound modification may occur.
② Vocal cords lie across glottis ,they can be held tightly to cut off streams
③ When the vocal cords are partially open, the vibration of vocal cords may result in voiced sounds including vowels and some consonants
④ When the vocal cords are down wide to let air go through, the sounds will be voiceless(由此可见，声带是否震动决定了这个音是带声还是不带声，而无法区别音是元音还是辅音)
2. Oral cavity
① The greatest source for modification of air stream is found in oral cavity
② Oral cavity includes tongue, uvular(小舌), soft plate（软腭）, hard plate（硬腭） teeth ridge（齿龈）, teeth, lips. Tongue is the most flexible among the all.
3. Nasal cavity:
 ① Nasal cavity and oral cavity are connected with each other
 ② The soft palate can down back to close the passage so that the air can only come from mouth, which will produce unassimilated sounds（无鼻音化音） including vowels and most consonants. If the passage is open to let the air go from the nose ,the sounds produced are called nasal consonants including [m]、[n]、[ŋ]
2.2.3 Orthographic representation of speech sound
1.IPA(International Phonetic Alphabet) was come up with as a standard and internationally accepted system of phonetic transcription at the end of the 19th century. Basic principals of IPA is to choose one letter from major European languages to represent one speech sound
2.Narrow transcription and broad transcription
a.Broad transcription: Transcription with symbol letters
b.Narrow transcription: Transcription with symbol-letters and diacritics to show the detailed aspects of differences in pronunciation.
c.Narrow transcription is widely used in the study of speech sound by phoneticians but broad transcription is used in language teaching textbooks or dictionary
          3. Example:    In broad transcription, feel and leaf are transcribed as [fi:l] and  [li:f].However, the [l] in leaf are quite different from the[l] in feel. The formal is a clear [l] while the latter a dark[l] (when it appears at the end of a word or before another consonant)Therefore, in narrow transcription, we distinct dark[l] from the clear[l] with a diacritic[～],and feel is transcribed as[fi:l] rather than[fi:l]
2.2.4 Classification of speech sound
               Speech sound in English can be generally divided into two categories, vowels
           and consonants in terms of  whether  the stream is obstructed. consonants are
          produced with obstruction while vowels without
1.Classification of consonants:
Consonants can be categorized in terms of the manner of the pronunciation and place of obstruction
A.In terms of manner :
a.Stops（塞音）
 Manners: (1) The speech organs create total obstruction;
(2)The obstruction is released and the sounds are produced
                  Speech Sound:[p][b][k][g][t][d]

b.Fricatives（擦音）
 Manners: (1) The speech organs create partial obstruction;
(2)air is forced from narrow passage to cause frication
                  Speech Sound:[f][v][s][z] [ϑ] [ð] [∫] [ʒ][h]
c.Affricates（塞擦音）
 Manners: (1) The speech organs create total obstruction;
(2) The obstruction is released slowly with friction
                  Speech Sound: [t∫] [dʒ]
d.Liquids（滑音）
 Manners: (1) The air flow is obstructed
(2)It is allowed to pass through the passage between parts of the          
                tongue and roof of the month
                 Speech Sound: [l] [r](retroflex)
e.Nasals（鼻音）
Manners: The passage is open and the air flows from the nose
                 Speech Sound: [m][n] [ŋ]
f.Glides They are semivowels: [w] [j] both are voiced.
B.In terms of place of articulation:
a.Bilabial (双唇音) The upper and lower lips are put together to create obstructions [p] [b] [m] [w]
b.Labiodentals(唇齿音) The lower lip is brought into contract with upper teeth [f] [v]
c.Dental (齿音) The obstruction is created between the upper teeth and tips of the tongue [ϑ] [ð]
d.Alveolar (齿龈音) The tongue is brought to touch teeth-ridge to create obstruction [t] [d] [s] [z] [k][g] [n] [l] [r]
e.Palatal(硬腭音) The obstruction is created between the back of the tongue and hard palate(硬腭) [∫] [ʒ] [dʒ] [t∫] [j]
f.Velar (软腭音) The obstruction is created between soft palate(软腭) and back of tongue.[k] [g] [ŋ]
g.Glottal(声门音) Vocal cords are brought together to create obstructions [h]
2. Classification of vowels:
Vowels can be classified in terms of three criteria, highest position of the tongue, openness of mouth, and shape of lips
(1)Highest position of the tongue
Front: [i:] [І] [ e ] [æ] [a]
Central: [ə] [З:] [Λ]
Back: [u:][u][ ɒ] [ɔ:] [ɑ:]
(2)Openness of mouth
Close: [i:] [І][u][ u:]
   Semi-close: [ e ] [ə]
   Semi-open: [ə] [ɔ:]
   Open:[æ] [ ɒ] [Λ] [a]
(3) According to the shape of lips, it can be divided into rounded-lip vowels(所有的back vowels, unrounded-lip vowels(所有的front 和center vowels)
2.3 Phonology ★
2.3.1 Phonology and Phonetics
1.Phonetics and phonology study speech sound from different focus. Phonetics studies all the speech sounds in human communication about how they are produced or how they different from each other.  Phonology studies how the sounds form patterns and how they are used to convey meanings in human communication.
2.Example:
The letter “l” is pronounced differently in lead and deal, in lead, it is clear [l], while in deal, it is dark [l].
Phonetically, they are different, and the differences between them are what phoneticians are interested in.
Phonologically, they are fundamentally the same, because they have the same function in communication and in distinguishing meaning. In phonology, they are two versions of the same entity.  

 

 

 

2.3.2Phone, phoneme and allophone
1.Phone:
a.Phones are phonetic units
b.All the speech sounds we hear and produce are in communication are phones.
c.Phones do not necessarily distinguish meanings.

2.Phoneme: 
a.Phonemes are phonological units
b.Phonemes are abstract unites represented by different phones in the phonetic context
c. Phonemes have distinctive value. (We use/ / to represent phonemes)
3.Allophone: The different phones that represent the same phonemes in different phonetic context are allophones of each other
Example：
   We have dark [l] in deal and clear [l] in lead. Dark [l] and clear[l] are two different phones but they belong to the same phoneme because they do not distinguish meaning. i.e. if dark[l] is mistakenly pronounced as clear[l],the meaning will not be misunderstood. Both dark[l] and clear[l] represent the same phoneme/l/, therefore, they are allophones of the same phoneme Similarly,[p]and[ph],[k]and[kh] are allophones of phonemes:/p/ and /k/ However,[k] and [g] belong to different phonemes /k/ and/g/ To see whether two sounds belong to the same phoneme is to see whether they distinguish meanings ,if they do ,they belong to different phonemes
2.3.3Phonemic contrast, complementary distribution, minimal pair
If two phonetically similar sounds belong to different phonemes, they are phonemic contrast
If two phonetically similar sounds belong to the same phoneme, they do not distinguish meaning, but compliment each other in distribution. They are complementary distribution
   Example: clear [l] appear before vowels or at the start of a word while dark [l] before another consonant or at the end of a word, they are phonetically similar but belong to the same phoneme, and are thus complimentary distribution. However,[p]and[b] are phonemic contrast because they belong to different phonemes
If two unites are identical with only one segment being different in the same place in the string, they are called a minimal pair. For example [bi:t]and [bi:f] or[bi:t]and[bΛt] etc.are minimal pairs. With more than two such unites, there are minimal sets like [bi:t] [mi:t] and[fi:t] form a minimal set. The best way to find different phonemes is to find minimal pairs
2.3.4 Some rules in phonology
  Phonological rules are to study how phonemes are combined
a.Sequential rules: The rules that govern the combination of sounds in particular language. Those rules are language specific and what is permissible in one language may be not in another. For example, in English ,r or l must be followed by vowels
b.Assimilation rules: The assimilation rules assimilate one sound to another by copying a feature of a sequential phoneme, thus, making the two phones similar. For example ,if a vowel,(say[i:])is followed by a nasal,(say [n]),it will be nasalized (鼻音化) For example bean, seen  etc The assimilation is reflected in spelling in most cases ,for example ,we use impossible rather than *inpossible because [n] is assimilated to[m] due to[p]
c.Deletion rules: it tells when a sound is deleted although it is orthographically presented. For example ,in sign, there is no pronunciation of [g] but in signature, there is[g]
Conclusion: Delete a [g] when it appears before the final nasal consonant
2.3.5 Supersegmental features
     Supersegmental features are features beyond a segmental but features run over a sequence of segments like words or sentences, including tone, stress and intonation
    Stress
a.Two kinds of stress: sentence stress and word stress
b.The change of the stress in a word may make a noun into a verb although the written form is not changed.
c.The stress in a compound word is different from the stress in a sentence consisting the same elements.
d.In a sentence, nouns, main verbs adjectives adverbs are always stressed. Any words, including those who are not always stressed can be stressed.
Tone
  Tones are pitch variations（音高变化） caused by the differing rates of the vibration of the vocal cords. Tones can distinguish meaning in tone language, English is not a tone language but Chinese is a tone language.
Intonation
       When pitch , stress, sound length are tied to the sentences, they are collectively known as  intonation. Four types of intonation: fall(straightforward), rise(making question). rise-fall(implied meaning), fall-rise(不太常用)intonation is very important in meaning conveyance and intonation can make a certain part of sentence important by placing nucleus on it.  The nucleus normally falls on the last stressed syllable

 

     Chapter Three    Morphology
3.1 Morphology
3.1.1 Open class and closed class ★
A.Open class: Classes of content words实词 of a language in which we can add new elements. For example, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs.可以在造新词
B.Close class: Classes of grammatical or functional words in which we can hardly add new words. For example, conjunctions, prepositions, articles etc.不可以在造出同类的新词
3.1.2 Internal structure of words and rules for word formation
  Words are not the most elemental unites of meaning. The internal structure of words is subjected to rules. Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words and the rules by which the words are formed.
 Example:
   Some verbs with the prefix(前缀) dis- can show a negative meaning while some verbs can not. We have disagree, dislike but we do not have *disfeel or *dishear. On the other hand, dis- can be used as a prefix but never a suffix. These rules mentioned are examples of morphological rule.
3.2 Morphemes-----the minimal units of meaning
  Words are formed by combining a number of distinct units of meaning .The basic units of meaning are traditionally called morphemes All words in all languages are composed by one or one more morphemes
A.Bound morpheme and free morpheme
a.Bound morpheme: The morphemes only appear with other morphemes. In other words, they are morphemes that do not appear unattached. Like dis, un etc
b.Free morpheme: The morphemes that can appear independently to convey meaning. Like girl, rely etc.
B.Derivational morpheme and inflectional morpheme★
a. Derivational morpheme: Morphemes that contribute to the derivation of new morphemes or words when they are conjoined to other words or morphemes   Such morphemes like –en,-iez etc. may sometimes change the category or grammatical class of words ,but some derivational morphemes do not.产生了新词是标准，而不是改变词性是标准
   b. Inflectional morpheme: Morphemes that are only grammatical marks for tense or case, but do not create new morphemes or words, like –s, -ed etc.
   Example:
    第一：有些词素可以改变词性，例如 –en, straight→straighten
     第二：有些词素不改变词性，但依然产生新词，例如co-,operation→cooperation.
     其次： 以上两种都产生了新词，叫做Derivational morphemes.而如-ed,-s等并不产生新词，work→works→worked,这叫做inflectional morphemes.
3.4 Morphological rules and their productivity
1.Morphological rules: The ways in which morphemes are combined to form words For example, un+usual=unusual, un+acceptable=unacceptable. Thus, we may conclude that UN+ ADJECTIVE=NOT ADJECTIVE
2.Productivity of morphological rules: Some rules can be used freely to create new words and they are productive. For example UN+ ADJECTIVE=NOT ADJECTIVE is productive to some extent. However, the productivity of a morphological rule varies as the morphological features of words change. We may have unable or unimportant but never *unsad or*unnice
3.5 Compounds
   Compounding is another way of the derivation of new words besides combining morphemes 产生新词的方法：将词素组合或者是复合词
  Note:
a.The grammatical category(class) of the newly compounded word is determined mainly by the second or last element 词性
b.Compound words always have the different stress with the uncompounded sequence. Example: Black bird and Blackbird are different in stress. In compounded words, the first part is always stressed. 重度
c.The meanings of the compounded words are not always the sum of the parts. The meaning of the compounded words sometimes indicate the meaning of the parts but there are compounded words whose meaning are not related to the meaning of the components at all.意义 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Four  Syntax
4.1 What is syntax
   Syntax is a branch of linguistics that studies how the words are combined to form sentences and how the sentences are grouped by rules of their structures.
4.2 Categories
  Categories refer to a group of linguistics items which fulfill the same or similar functions in a particular language. Such as sentences noun phrases or verbs.
4.2.1 Word-level categories
1.Words can be grouped together into a relatively small number of classes called syntactic categories. Syntactic categories reflect factors including type of meaning, affixes, structures these words take. The most central categories to the syntactic study are the word-level categories
2.There are eight word-level categories in traditional grammar and three non-traditional word-level categories, namely Determiners, Degree words Qualifiers 翻译：限定词、程度词、修饰词 
3.Two kinds of categories:
A. Major lexical categories: The categories, which play important roles in forming sentences. They are always regarded as the heads of the phrases including nouns verbs adjectives propositions etc.
B. Miner lexical categories: The categories, which play less important roles in sentence formation including qualifier determiner or degree words
4.Categories are not clearly cut since some words belong to more than one category. Three criteria to determine the lexical categories: meaning, reflection, and distribution. Distribution is more reliable 
5.Lexical categories can not be told only by their meanings. 
Reasons:
a.Some abstract nouns do no reveal their entities such as dilemma. friendship etc.
b.Some words which tend to be nouns can be used as verbs, such as love, hate
c.Some nouns with the similar meaning belong to different categories such as be aware of and know about
4.2.2 Phrase categories and their structures
1.Syntactic units built around a certain word is called phrase. The category of a phrase is determined by the word around which it is built
2.Phrase can consist of one word but more often they are consist of more than one word.
3.Two levels of phrase are word level and phrase level
4.Phrases formed by more than one word contain the following elements including head ( The word around which the phrase is built) specifier(The words on the left of the heads) complement(The words on the right of the head)
4.3Phrase structure rule确保specifier，head，complement在正确的位置上
1.Definition
The grammatical rules that ensure the proper positions that head, specifiers and complements occupies in phrase structure
2.Examples
NP→(Det)N(PP)
VP→(Qual)V(NP)
AP→(Deg)A(PP)
PP→(Deg)P(NP)
3.Rules包括三种短语规则
a.XP rule
In the phrase, specifiers are attached to the left of the head and complements are attached to the right at the top level.

b.X- rule
   X- consisted of complements and head may be between the word level and phrase level and specifier and X- make up the higher level, as showed.( X-读作X拔)。一般情况X-层会省去，但做深层分析要知道这一层

c.Coordination rule并列规则
Phrase that are formed by joining structures of the same type are called coordinate structures and such phenomenon is called coordination.
Properties of the coordinate rules:
1) There is no limit on the number of categories to be appear before the conjunction左边可以并列无数个
2) A category at any level can be coordinated
3) The category type of the coordination phrase is identical to the elements being coordinated.
X→X*con X  ( X: A category of any type; con: conjunction; X*:one or more elements of the same category with X)
4.4Phrase elements
1.Specifier
a.Specifiers have both semantic and syntactic roles
b.Semantically, they help to make more precise meaning of the head
c.Syntactically, they typically mark the phrase boundary
d.Syntactic category of the specifier differs depending on the category of head, determines for nouns, qualifiers for verbs and degree words for Propositions
2.Complements
a. Complements are phrases that provide information about entities and locations whose existence is implied by meaning of the head
b. Subcategorization
The information of the word’s complements included in the head is called subcategorization.  Subcategorization and phrase structure rules together ensure categories appear in the proper types of tree structure A certain type of complements require a certain type of complement
c. The revised XP rules
  XP→(Specifier)X(Complements*)
     This rule shows that no matter how many complements there are ,they appear on the right of the head.
d.CP (complement phrase)
 1). A sentence can be introduced by a conjunction to function as a phrase
 2). The conjunction which introduce the sentence is called Complementizer, and the sentence introduced by the complementizer is called Complement Clause. The whole sentence above is called complement phrase. The sentence in which complement clause is imbedded is called Matrix Clause
3). There is no limit on the number of imbedded clauses that can occur since the complements clause can contain a verb to permit a CP
4) Not all the verbs can take CPs and the words taking CPs are not only verbs.
3.Modifiers
1.The elements that specify the optionally expressible properties of the head.
2.Expanded XP rules:
XP→（Spec.）(Mod.)X(Complment*)(Mod.)
Modifiers can appear whether proceeding or following the head
4.5Sentences
1.The largest syntactic units of analysis is sentence
2.S→NP VP
3.The sentence rule is based on the assumption that sentences do not contain a head. But linguists believe that sentences contain heads. They take an abstract category inflection as the head of the sentence , NP as specifier and VP as complement

4.6Transformations★
1.Auxiliary movement:(To form yes-no questions)
A.Two steps to form yes-no questions:
a.The usual XP rule is used to form a structure in which the auxiliary occupies its normal position.
b.The auxiliary is moved to the left of NP, to the position of C, which is empty.
B． If a sentence is imbedded as complement clause into another sentence, it will be introduced by a C, and the C position will be occupied. Therefore, there will not be transformations since complementizer and auxiliary are always exclusive ★这就是我们所说的从句中的陈述句语序了For example I do not know whether he will come rather than *I do not know whether will he come
C. Transformations can change the position of the word but can never eliminate the position or change the categories of words. Even when the auxiliary is transformed to the C position, the original position should be marked byεand the formal position is called the trace

2.Do insertion (To form yes-no questions that do not have inflections)
a.To insert DO into an empty inflectional position
b.To move DO to the left of the head. (C position)

 

3.D- structure and S- structure
The analysis of the sentence should be carried on with the help of two different mechanisms, the XP rule, which determines the internal structure of categories and transformations, which modify the structure by moving a element from one position to another
a.Deep structure: the structure formed by the XP rules according to the subcategorization properties
b.Surface structure: the final structure of sentences after transformation.
c.Example: Will the train leave is a S-structure and The train will leave is a D-structure.
  A diagram to show how to form surface structure

 

 

4.Wh movement
a.Move a “wh phrase” to the specifier position under CP 就是在cp结构中再加上np
b.“wh movement” cannot eliminate any part of the structural configuration formed by the rules. Thus, the position occupied by “wh phrase”is not lost but remain as a trace.
c.Example:

When a “wh phrase is moved from complement position to specifier, the auxiliary should be moved to Complementizer position, while when the “wh phrase”is moved from subject to the specifier, the word order do not change.
Example: What do you like? and  Who win the game?
5.Move α
The general rules for transformation is move α.αrefers to the elements to be removed .Movements are constrained by the following conditions:
a.Insertion can move a auxiliary to a nearest C position but not a more distinct C position
b.No elements can be removed from the coordinate structures.
4.7Summary
 Phrase structure rule: determine the deep structure
 Subcategorization: ensure the heads match their complements
 Transformation: modifier the sentences and produce surface structure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Five   Semantics
5.1 What is semantics
Definition: Semantics can be defined as the study of meaning.
5.2 Some views concerning the study of meaning:★
1.The oldest notions concerning meaning was the meaning used in language are simply labels of objects they stand for. The theory was came up with by Plato.
The limitations:
a.This theory can be applied to nouns only
b.In the category of nouns, there are nouns denoting things that do not exit.
c.There words that abstract
2.The conceptualist view
A.This theory is more complicated than Plato’s view. It relates words and things through the mediation of the concepts of the mind.
B.Main points:
a. There is no direct link between a linguistics form and what it refers to
    b. In the interruption of meaning, they are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind.
       C. Semantic Triangle by Ogden and Richard
      
  Symbols refers to the language elements, referent refer to objects in the world of experience. Reference refers to concept.

D. Problems:
  It doesn’t show how symbols and concept are related.
3.The contextualism
A. In the period between 1730s to 1760s, linguists gave preeminence to empirical or observable aspect instead of theoretical aspect in investigation. The linguists at that tine based meaning on context.
B.The contextualism view: Meaning should be studied in terms of elements closely linked with language behavior, context or situation.
C.Representative: J.R.Firth                                
D.The theory presumes that one can derive meaning from or reduce meaning to the contexts. Two kinds of context: situational context and linguistics context. Context, sometimes known as context is concerned with the possibility of the word’s co-occurrence and collocation with another word, which forms part of the meaning of the word. For example, the meaning of black in black hair is different from in black coffee
4.Behaviorism
(1). Behaviorism is the strengthen of conceptualist’s view by Bloomfield. He draw on behaviorist psychology when trying to define the meaning of the linguistics form.
(2). The behaviorists attempted to define the meaning of a linguistics form as the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer.
(3) A picture for behaviorism
   
Bloomfield believes that meaning consists in the relation between speeches indicated by r…s while the practical events represented by S,R.
Example: When Jill sees an apple and wants to have it, she has a physical stimulus (represented by S ) which gives rise to a verbal response (r ) to Jill. What she say give a verbal response to Jack (s) and the stimulus leads to a non-verbal response from Jack, such as picking the apple for her.
5.3 Lexical meaning (sense relations between words)
1. Sense and Reference ★
a.Sense is concerned with the inherit meaning of the linguistics form. It is the collection of all the features of the linguistics form. It is the aspect of meaning dictionary compliers are interested in. A defined word in a dictionary does not refer to any particular one of these kinds of objects but all the objects that meet the description, it is abstract.
b.Reference means what a linguistics form refers to in the real word. It deals with the relationship between linguistics form and non-linguistics world of experience. A word in a sentence refers to a particular object.
c.The relationship between sense and reference
linguistics forms sharing the same sense may have different references in different situation, and linguistics forms diverse in sense may have the same reference.
2. Sense relations between words:
 A. Synonymy (同义词)
1.Definition:
Synonymy refers to the sameness or similarity of meaning. Words that are close in meaning are called synonyms. For historical reasons, English had borrowed words from European languages and most borrowed words have been naturalized. Words from different languages form synonyms with native words.
2.Classification:
a.Dialectal synonyms: Dialectal synonyms are words with close meaning used in different regional dialects. For example, regional dialects like British English and American English contain many different linguistics forms of the same sense. Like fall autumn; lift elevator
b.Stylistic synonyms: Stylistic synonyms may have the same meaning but have different styles or degree of formality. Some are formal, some are causal and some are neutral. For example: start, begin, commence etc.
c.Synonyms that differ in their emotive or evaluative meaning:
Synonyms, bearing the same sense but express different emotions of the users, including the speakers’ attitude toward what he is talking about. For example, accomplice and collaborator are synonyms, they share the same meaning of someone who help others, however collaborator means a person who help others to do something, but collaborator means a person who help people to do something good, accomplice means a people who help others to do something bad. (negative meaning)
      d. Collocational synonyms
        Collocational synonyms are words differ in their collocation or in the words they go together with. For example, charge, accuse, rebuke are synonyms sharing the meaning: sb. has done sth. wrong, but they are followed by different propositions. charge with, accuse of, rebuke for. too also, either are collocational synonyms
      e. Semantically synonyms
        These are synonyms whose meaning share the slight difference. For example, astound, amaze share the same meaning of surprise, amaze suggests confusion and bewilderment but astound suggests difficulty in believing.
B. Polysemy (一词多义)
        If one word has more than one meaning, this word is called polysemic(多义词)word ,and the phenomenon is called polysemy. The more commonly used word is more likely to acquire more than one meaning.  Polysemy can be understood as the development and change of meaning. The meaning, which the word is firstly understood, is called its primary meaning.
C. Homonymy（近义词和近音词）
a.Homonymy refers to the phenomenon that words of different meanings are
identical in spelling, sound or both. If they are identical in sound, they are homophones. When they identical in spelling, they are called homographs and if they are identical in both, they are called complete homonyms.
  Different meanings of a polysemic word is somewhat related with each other and the meanings of complete homonyms are less closely related with each other.
D. Hyponymy (下义关系)
 Hyponymy refers to the same relation between a more general word and a more specific word. The word which is more general in meaning is called superordinate and specific words are called Hyponyms. Hyponyms of the sane superordinate are called co-hyponyms.
E. Antonymy (反义关系)
1.Definition:
Antonymy is used for oppositeness of meaning; Words that are opposite in meaning are called antonyms
2.Classification:
a.Gradable antonyms:
Gradable antonyms are antonyms between which there are intermediate forms. It is only a matter of degree. Young and old are two gradable antonyms. There are words between two extremes, like middle aged, elderly etc.
b.Complementary antonyms
Complementary antonyms refer to a pair of antonyms sharing the feature that the denial of one of the pair meanings the assertion of another. There are no intermediation between the two extremes.
c.Relational antonyms:
Relational antonyms are pairs of antonyms that exhibit the reversal of a relationship between two items. For example, teacher and student, doctor and patient etc.
5.4 Sense relations between sentences
  There are relations between sentences as well as the continents of the same sentences.
A. X is synonymous with Y
   (If X is true, Y is true, if Y is true ,X is true )
 X: He is a bachelor all his life
 Y: He never married all his life.
B. X is inconsistent with Y
   ( if X is true, Y is false; if Y is true, X is false)
X: John is married
Y: John is a bachelor
C. X entails Y
  (Entailment is a kind of inclusion. If X entails Y, the meaning of X is included in Y)
X: He has been to France
Y: He has been to European
If X is true, Y must be true, if X is false, Y may not be false.
D.  X presupposes Y ( X 预设Y)
 If X is true, Y must be true and if Y is false , Y may be true.
X: The queen of England is old
Y: England has a queen.
E. X is a contradiction
If X is a contradiction , it is always false itself
My married sister is married to a bachelor
F. X is semantically anomalous
 If X is semantically anomalous, it is absurd in sense that it presupposes a contradiction
The table has bad intention
5.5 Analysis of meaning
A. Componential analysis:
1.Definition:
Componential analysis is proposed by structural semanticists,to analyze the meaning of words. This approach is based on the belief that the meaning of words can be dissected into meaning components called semantic features
2.How to analyze
a.Capital letters are used to indicate the symbols of the feature.
b.“+”and “-” are used to indicate the absence or presence of the feature.
An example is that   MAN is analyzed as +ADULT, +HUMAN, +ANIMATE +MALE
And BOY is analyzed as   -ADULT, +HUMAN, +ANIMATE +MALE
3.意义：
Componential analysis provides an insight into the meaning of words and a way to study the relationships between words that are related in meaning.
B. Predication Analysis (述位分析)
1.Two main points about meaning
A.The meaning of the sentence is not the sum of the meanings of its components and the sentence meaning cannot be analyzed by adding all the meanings of the components
B.Two aspects of sentence meaning
a.grammatical meaning: The grammatical meaning refer to the grammaticality ,i.e. the well-formedness of the sentence
b.Whether a sentence is semantically meaningful is governed by rules called selectional restrictions, constrains on what lexical items can go with what others 
2.Predication Analysis
a.Predication analysis is proposed by G．Leech
b.Predication is the basic unit in predication analysis which means the abstraction of the meaning of a sentence.
c.A predication consists of predicate and arguments
 An argument is a logical participant in a sentence, largely identical with the nominal elements in a sentence 
A predicate is something said about the logical participant or the logical relations linking the arguments in a sentence.
有关述位分析的举例：
 The sentence Tom Smokes has the predication of TOM(SMOKE) of which the argument is “TOM” and predicate “ SMOKE” The grammatical form of a sentence doses not affect the semantic predication, for sentences like Tom is smoking or Tom smokes share the same predication. TOM(SMOKE). Some predications contain two nominal elements and we call them two- place predication. Therefore, predications can be divided into one-place predication and two-place predication.  The predicate can be regarded as the main part of the sentences since it determines the nature of the arguments

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Six   Pragmatics
6.1 Some basic notions
6.1.1 Pragmatics
1.Pragmatics is generally defined as the study of how a speaker use sentences to effect successful communication. It can also be defined as the study of meaning in the certain context.
2.The development of pragmatics resulted from the expansion of semantics and the contextualism is often considered to the initial of pragmatics 
3.The study of pragmatics include topics related to language communication: deixis(指示), indirect language, politeness, cross-cultural communication etc.
6.1.2 Pragmatics and Semantics
1.Basic notion for linguistics study by Saussure.
Language should be studied as a self-contained, intrinsic system. Any serious study of linguistics can not afford to the investigation of language use and any extra-linguistics factors can not be considered.
2.Difference and similarities
Similarities: Both semantics and pragmatics are the study of meaning
Differences: When the notion of context is taken into consideration, semantics spills over to pragmatics. In this way, whether the notion of context is taken into consideration distinguishes pragmatics from semantics
6.1.3 Context★
A. Context refers to the knowledge shared by the speaker and hearer For example, the knowledge of the language they use, the language of what is being talked about and the knowledge of the situation in which the communication is taking place.
B.Context determines how a speaker uses and how a hearer interprets the language, without considering the context, the communication will not be satisfactory.
6.1.4 Sentence meaning and utterance meaning★
A. Sentence is a grammatical unit and sentence meaning is considered to be abstract and is studied as the intrinsic property of sentences in terms of predication.
B. Utterance meaning is considered to be concrete since it is usually what people utters in a certain situation. It is always studied in the context.
C. Utterance meaning depends on sentence meaning .It is the realization of abstract sentence meaning in a concrete situation in which the sentences are uttered. Some utterances do not take complete grammatical sentence form
6.2 Speech act theory
1.What is speech act theory
It is a important theory in the pragmatic study of language which originated with the British philosopher John Austin in the 1950s. It is the philosophical explanation of the nature of linguistics communication, which aims to answer the question, what do we do when using language
2.Austin’s models of speech acts★
A.Constative and Probative
Austin found that some sentences are neither to state a fact nor to describe something, and they are not verifiable, which is against the traditional concept that the sentences are used either to sate or describe something. Therefore, he came up with the concepts constative and performative
a.Constative:
Constatives are sentences either used to state facts or to describe something and are therefore verifiable.
b.Perfomative:
Performatives are sentences neither used to state facts nor to describe something but performing some acts and they are therefore not verifiable. For example: I name this ship Elizabeth.
B.Another model to explain acts by means of language
a.Locutionary acts:
Locutionary acts are acts of uttering words, phrases, and clauses. They are acts of conveying meaning by syntax, lexicon and phonology.
b.Illocutionary acts
Illocutionary acts are acts of expressing the speakers’ intension .It is performed in saying something
c.Perlocutionary acts
Perlocutionary acts are acts resulted from saying something. They are consequences or changes brought by the utterance.
       The linguists are most interested in illocutionary acts because illocutionary acts express the speakers’ intention and how the intentions are interpreted in the communication.
3.Searle’s speech act theory
In the light of speech act theory, we are performing acts while speaking. The process of linguistics communication consists of a sequence of acts.
American philosopher John Searle classified illocutionary acts into five general categories. These five categories share the same illocutionary points but differ in strength. 
a.Representative
Stating or describing. Saying what the speakers believe to be true. The speakers will commit to the hears sth.’s being the case. Stating, believing and swearing are among the representatives.
b.Directive
The speaker will get the hearer to do something.
c.Commisive
To commit the speakers to some future course of actions. When speaking, the speakers put themselves under certain obligations. For example, I will do it next time. I promise to come tomorrow.etc.
d.Expressive
The speakers will express his or her psychological state in the utterance. The speaker will express his feelings or attitudes toward the affaire. For example: I feel sorry for doing it. I am very glad that you can come. etc.
e.Declaration
The speakers will speak to bring about immediate changes. The successful performance of declarations bring about the correspondence between what is said and reality.  For example: I fire you. I declare the start of the meeting etc.
6.3 Principals of conversation
1.CP (cooperate principals)
Paul Grice’s idea is that in the conversation, the participants must firstly cooperate. Otherwise, it would be impossible for them to carry on the talk..
2.Principals
Make your conversational contribution such as required at the stage at which it occurs by the accepted purpose or direction of the take exchange in which you are engaged.(当交谈的方向或目的被接受时，就可以按照要求对话了)
 Maxims★
a.The maxim of quantity
Make your conversation as informative as required but not more than required.
b.Maxim of quality
Do not say what you believe to be false or lack of evidence
c.Maxim of relation
Be relevant
d.Maxim of manner.
Avoid obscurity and ambiguity Be brief and orderly.
The CP is always observed and the four maxim are always to be floated. When the maxims are flouted, the conversational implecture★ occur . When the maxims are flouted, the hearer and speaker are always aware of the violation.
  The significant of Grice’s CP is that it explains how it is possible for the speaker to convey more than what is literally said.

 

Chapter Seven   Language Change
7.1 Introduction
  All languages change through time, though they do rather slowly .All parts of grammar may change.
7.2 Sound change
  Sound change tends to be systematically, it is possible to see a regular pattern of pronunciation changes through time. The further vowel shift started around the 1400s
7.3 Morphological and syntactic change
  7.3.1 Change in agreement rule (一致关系)
Example: his in modern English refers to animate muscular nouns, but in ancient English, it refers to any nouns that are masculine. The nouns of Middle English are like though in modern French or Spanish with most nouns owning the features of genders.
7.3.2 Change in negation rules:
  In ancient times, we add “not” at the end of an affirmative sentence to negate it while in modern English, “not” must proceed the main verb or a “do” marked for the proper tense.
7.3.3 Process of simplification
  There may be a loss of distinction through a process of simplification. For example, old English may have a number of case and gender, which were lost in Middle English.
7.3.4 Loss of inflections
  Inflections often change by a process of rule-generalization. Some words with a irregular plural form develop a regular plural form by analogy. Example: Stan→Stanas in old English and Stone→Stones in modern English.
7.4 Vocabulary Change:
   Vocabulary change includes addition of new words, loss of words and change in the meaning of words.
a . Coinage
   A new word may be coined to fit new purposes like Walkman, Xerox
b. Clipped words
   Clipping refers to the abbreviation of longer words or phrases. For example:
gum→gymnasium    expo→exposition
fridge→refrigerator   script→prescription
c. Blending
Blending word is a word formed by combining parts of other words
Smog→smoke+fog  Camcorder→Camera+ recorder
Comsat→communication+ satellite  Motel→ motor+ hotel
d. Acronyms
Acronyms are words derived from the initials of several words.
CBS→Columbia Broadcasting System
ISBN→International Standard Book Number
WTO→World Trade Organization
Acronyms are not pronounced as a word but pronounced by sounding out each letter.
e.Back-formation
New words may be coined from already existing words by subtracting an affix though to be part of the old word.
Edit (Editor 去掉or) beg (beggar 去掉ar)
baby-sit ( baby-sitter 去掉er) butch (butcher 去掉er)
f.Functional Shift
Words may shift from one part of speech to another without the addition of affixes.
Noun→Verb   to knee, to broke
Verb→Noun   a reject  a retreat
Adjective→Verb  to cool  to narrow
Adjective→Noun  a daily  the rich
g.Borrowing
When different cultures come into contact, words are often borrowed from one language to another. The loan words may label a new concept or become a synonyms of a native word. Many words in English are borrowed from French and not all loan words assimilated into a language immediately.
 7.4.2 Loss of words
   Since the words can come into a language, they may also lost from a language gradually from generation to generation because the objects they name are discontinuous.
7.4.3 Change in the meaning of words
a.Widening of meaning
When the meaning of a word becomes broader, that word means everything it used to mean, and then more
For example, holiday originally meant a certain day of religious significance, Holy Day. However, today, it means days, which we do not have to work.  Tail originally meant to the tails of a horse, but now it referred to the tails of any animals.
b.Narrowing of meaning
In the course of generation, semantic change has narrowed the meaning of a word in modern English. For example, girl once meant young people of either sex and now refer to young people of female sex.
c.Meaning shift
The fact that a lexical item may undergo a shift in meaning is the third kind of semantic change. The word happen in old English meant silly and nice meant ignorant a thousand years ago.
7.5 Some recent change
7.5.1 Moving towards greater informality
  Since the Second World War, there has been a trend towards much grater informality. People believe that the trend towards greater informality in the use of the written word is to be welcomed rather than deplored.
7.5.2 The influence of American English
  American English has been assaulting the British Isles with ever-increasing weight and persistence through movies, newspapers, magazines radios and televisions
   British               America
   Autumn               Fall
   Pavement              Sidewalk
   Petrol                 Gasoline
   Lift                   Elevator
7.5.3 The influence of science and technology
 As science and technology develop, people use new words to express new concepts, techniques and inventions. Space travel, computer and Internet are three dominate fields
7.6 Cause of language change
1.The development of science and technology has led to the creation of new words
2.Social and political change and political needs have supplied the English vocabulary with great quantity of new words and expressions
3.More and more woman have taken up activities that are formerly reserved for man. More and more neuter job titles have been created.
4.The way children acquire language provides a basic cause of language change. Children’s grammar is not like that of adult and can gradually change
5.Economy of memory result in the simplification of grammar, by analogical change or internal borrowing. For example, we use cows as the plural form of cow by analogizing to other nouns instead of the earlier form kine. 
6.As the result of theory of least effort. We often use cheap in place of cheaply.
7.There is undoubtedly no single reason for language change, and the exact reasons are still exclusive and need to be further investigated

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eight   Language and Society
8.1 The scope of socialinguisticss
8.1.1 The relatedness between language and society.
1.Definition of socialinguisticss
  Socialinguisticss is the sub-field of linguisticss that studies two relationships
a.The relationship between language and society
b.The relationship between language use and the social structure in which the users live.
2.How language and society related with each other
      Social factors cannot be excluded from our description of language since there are many inclinations of the inter-relationship between language and society.
a.Language is used for maintaining social relationships besides communicating meanings. For example, we use Hi, Good morning to start a conversation or to greet with each other.
b.The use of the same language all speak differently since their choosing of language use is determined by their social background and the language reveals the information of the speaker.
c.Language especially the structure of lexicon reflects both physical and social environment of the society. For example , in English ,only a word snow for snow but in Eskimo, there are many words for snow since snow is very important to the native people.
d.Language is closely related to the society in which it is used. The revolution of linguistics form is social .All language varieties are equal in fulfilling the function of communication. Therefore, judgments concerning correctness and purity of a language is social but not linguistics.(对语言变体正确性和纯度的裁决是具有社会性质的，而非语言学性质，因功能的角度来讲，无论是方言还是标准变体都具有一致的表达信息的能力) For example,[r](小舌音)is considered to be less correct in British English but enjoys more prestige and is considered more correct in New York dialect.
8.1.2 Speech variety and speech community
 1. What is speech community
In the socialinguistics study, speakers are regarded as members of social group, which is defined in a number of ways
a.The social group that is singled out for any special study is called speech community
b.For general linguisticss, speech community is a group of people who form a community and share the sane language or language variety.
c.For socialinguisticss, speech community is defined as a group of people who have the same opportunity to interact with others and who share not only the same language or language variety but also the same attitude toward linguistics norms
   2. What is speech variety
      Speech variety refers to any distinguishable form of speech used for a speaker or a group of speakers. linguistics features can be found at lexical, phonological and all levels of a language. It is more neutral term than standard and non-standard language. Linguists are mostly interested in regional dialects, sociolects and registers.
8.1.3 two approaches to socialinguistics studies
1.Bird’s eye view
To look at society as a whole and consider how language functions in it and how it reflects social differentiations
2.Worm’s eye view
To look at society from the point of view of an individual within it.
8.2 Language varieties
  Speakers of the same language do not speak in the same manner. There exist types or varieties of the same language. The varieties of language are assumed to be related to both the language user and language use to which the language is put. The varieties related to language user is called dialect and to language use is called register.
8.2.1 Dialectal varieties
8.2.1.1 Regional dialects
1.A regional dialect is a linguistics variety used by people living in the same geographical region. Dialect boundaries often coincide with geographical boundaries and the differentiation is accounted for by the lack of communication in the old days
2. The regional dialects spoken in the neighboring areas are intelligible to a great extent and the change from one dialect to another is gradual.
8.2.1.2 Sociolect
      Sociolect refers to the linguistics characteristics of a particular social class. People of the same region may speak differently since the social background influence the choice of linguistics forms. Accent is an important marker of sociolect RP in Britain is a marker of upper class and higher status as well as education. However, regional accent is not so important in status hierarchy in some other areas. Evidence of sociolect can be found at any level of the language.
8.2.1.3 Language and gender
   Several evidences of the relationship between language and gender in English
a.Woman in English-speaking countries are more status-conscious than man and there speech is more closely approach to standard variety
b.Female speakers tend to have a wider intonation than male, making their sounds more affected
c.Gender differences are also discovered in the selection of linguistics items .For example, females tend to use girl while males tend to use lady
d.Females speak less assertive and sounds more polite than males.
8.2.1.4 Language and age
      Certain linguistics features occur more frequently in none generation than that of the other, the most striking difference is found in lexical level People of the elder age speak differently from the young. For example, icebox is used by the old while fridge by the young. The differentiation is caused by complex reasons but the root reason is that the society is changing and social attitude and value judgment is changing.
8.2.1.5 idiolect
        Idiolect is a personal dialect of an individual speaker that combines elements regarding regional, social, gender and age variations. Various factors jointly determines one’s idiolect and one’s speaking manners reflect his social or regional background. The language system provides all its users the same potential of speaking and the realization of the potentials is individualized
8.2.1.6 Ethnic dialect
        An ethnic dialect is a social dialect that cuts across regional differences. It is mainly spoken by a less privileged group that has experienced some forms of segregation. Black English is an example of ethnic dialect.
补充点：
     Black English:
    Black English is another non-standard variety of English spoken by a langue section of non-middle-class American Blacks, expressing people as bad, poor and uneducated.
    Features:
a.Simplification of consonants clusters at the end of the word. For example passed [pa:s]
b.Illogicality is presented by the lack of the link verb “be” For example You crazy.
8.2.2 Register
   Language is related not only to the user but also to the situation in which it is used . A competent speaker of a language is in possession of many language varieties and may use different versions in different circumstances. The totality of linguistics varieties possessed by an individual constitutes his linguistics repertoire
  Many social factors are considered when a speaker choose a language variety from linguistics repertoire for a particular occasion. Many linguists are trying to find the relationship between social variables and linguistics features. Halliday’s register theory is among the well-known ones
A. Definition:
  Language varies as the function varies. It differs in different situation. The type of language which is selected as appropriate to the situation is called register.
B. Three factors to determine the register
a.Field of discourse
What is going on: The field of the operation of linguistics activities. It concerns with the purpose and subject-matter of communication and determines to a great extent the vocabulary to be used in communication as well as phonological and grammatical feature.
b.Tenor of discourse
Who are the participants and what is the relationship between them. It deals with the relationship between communicators and determines the level of formality and technicality we use.
c.Mode of discourse
The means of communication. How the communication is carried out. fundamental distinctions are writing and speaking. It also determines the level of formality .
8.2.3 Degree of formality
       Language used on different occasions differs in the degree of formality, determined by tenor of discourse. An American linguist Martin Joos distinguishes five stages of formality, namely intimate, casual, consultative, formal, and frozen. According to Joos ,it is routine to alternate within a single discourse between two scales which neighboring on this scale.(相邻正式程度之间的相互转换在一个语篇中很常见)
          Different styles of the same language can be characterized through different levels: syntactical, lexical and phonological.
        At the syntactic level, the use of passive voice and impersonal structure increase the degree of formality. At the lexical level, some loan words are more formal. The different address forms for the same person also reveal the relationship between the choice of certain lexical items and social constrains.
8.3 Standard dialect
1.Definition:
Standard dialect is a particular variety of language, which does not relate to any group of language users, but can be used by any members of speech community.
2.Feature:
a.The standard dialect is based on a selected variety of the language, always be the local dialect of the commercial and political center of the nation
b.The standard dialect is not acquired by children like his or her regional dialect. It is a superimposed dialect, which is imposed from above over the range of regional dialects(这个方言不是根据语言习得规律习得而获取的，而是一种不分地域的被强加上的，好不说，学校里的后天教授等。)
3.Function:
        Standard dialect is a variety that enjoys social prestige and is used for official purposes by the governments, media, and judiciary system. It is also the variety taught in educational institutions including schools where a language is taught as a second language.
8.4 Pidgins and Creole
1.Pidgin is a special language variety that mixes or blends languages ,for example Chinese and English , French and African dialect. It is spoken by people who speak different languages for restricted purposes such as trading.
2.European languages usually serve as basis of pidgins. Pidgins typically limited vocabulary and reduced grammatical structures marked by loss of inflections.
3.When the pidgin become the primary language of a speech community and is acquired by the children of the speech community as their native language, it is called Creole. The function of Pidgin develops and the vocabulary enriched when a Pidgin become Creole.
8.5 Bilingualism and diglossia
1.Bilingualism is a phenomenon that in some speech communities, two languages are used side by side with each having a role to play and language switching occurs when the situation changes
2.Paraguay is one of the places where researches of bilingualism are carried out. Spanish and Granni are used there. A typical example of bilingual community is ethnic ghetto where most of the inhabitants are immigrants and offspring of immigrants. Bilingualism also happens in countries where varieties are needed. Canada is an example where French and English are regarded as official languages
3.The term diglossia is firstly used by Ferguson in 1959. It refers to a speech community where two varieties of a language(注意区别) are used side by side ,with each having a definite role to play. One of the important feature is the specialization of the functions of the two varieties Examples of diglossia: Arabic, Modern Greek Swiss German and Haitian Creole

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Nine  Language and Culture
9.1 Culture
1.Culture, in a broad sense, means a total way of people’s life including factors such as beliefs, costumes institutions and languages which characterize the life of human community and in a narrow sense refers to local or specific practice, beliefs or costumes such as folk culture, enterprise culture or food culture.
2.There are generally two types of culture, material culture and spiritual culture material culture is concrete, substantial and observable; and spiritual culture is abstract, ambiguous and hidden.
3.Culture can be nurtured .It involves into all aspects of human life and influences people’s behavior
4. Culture is reproduced and preserved by the maintaining of beliefs, educations, traditions and other institutional mechanisms. Meanwhile, it changes slowly with the development of the society.
9.2 The relationship between language and culture
a.A word may stir up different associations in different people due to different cultural experience. Language use is heavily tined with its culture
b.Language expresses cultural reality. Language reflects people’s beliefs, attitude and world outlook, besides expressing facts ideas or events. Language embodies cultural identity. When a child acquires his mother tongue, he also acquires a language specific culture and become specialized. To dig it further, a language, as a system of signs with their own cultural substances and values may be viewed as a symbol of social identity.
c.The culture emancipates and constrains people socially, historically and metaphorically. Sharing the same community culture, people have acquired the common way of viewing the world through speech interaction with the members of the same community. Once the commonness is reinforced, the discourse community converges. The uniqueness of the language used for a certain group of people in different linguistics aspects constitutes discourse accents, which symbolizes different social status.
d.Culture affects people’s imagination or common dreams, which are mediate through the language and reflected in their life.
e.Culture is a wilder system that completely include language as subsystem. Language competence is a variety and speech behavior is a variety of social behavior.
★To sum up, since the knowledge and beliefs that constitute people’s culture are encoded and transmitted in the language of people, it is difficult to separate the two:
1.Language is a integral part of culture. It influences people’s thoughts and ways of viewing the world. Language both embodies and expresses cultural reality
2.Language, as a product of culture, helps to perpetual the culture and the change in language use reflects the change of society in return.
9.3 Sapir-Worlf Hypothesis★
1.Language relativity
The language people use influence the way people think and behave, i.e. different languages offer the users different ways to express the world and they think and behave differently. This is called language relativity.
2.Sapir-Worlf Hypothesis
This a hypothesis proposed by Sapir and Worlf, concerning about the relationship between language and thought. They believe that language filters people’s perception and categorization of experience after the study of American Indian languages. This is Sapir-Worlf hypothesis.
This hypothesis is percept in two version:
Strong version: Language determines the way people think and behave
Weak version: Language influences the way people think and behave
3.Two important insights
A.Language reflects cultural preoccupations and constrains the way people think
B.We recognize how important context complements the meaning encoded in the language.
9.4 linguistics evidence of cultural differences
   Any linguistics signs may be simultaneously of denotative, connotative, iconic kind of meanings
a.Denotative meaning: The definition of a word in a dictionary
b.Connotative meaning; the words triggers many associations
c.Iconic meaning: The words invoke our imagination.
For the word rose, its denotative meaning is a flower with pleasant smell and is usually red or pink. The connotative meaning is most good things such as love or beauty. The iconic meaning is perhaps imaginations like beautiful young lady.
9.4.1 Greetings and terms of address
    Different languages offer people different terms to greet people. A speaker may choose proper terms to greet differently in different occasions. For example, people of English speaking country greet the new acquaintance by saying “How do you do” and greet the old friends by uttering “How are you” We Chinese use the term “Ni hao” whether they meet for the first time or anytime a day.
9.4.2 Complements and thanks
     Cultural differences also lead to the differences in expressing gratitude and complements. Westerners tend to express gratitude more directly and frankly and respond to the complements in a more positive reaction. For example, a Chinese may say something to deny or feel embarrassed when someone else say something for complements but English people may respond to it with the utterance “I am very glad to hear that ”etc.
9.4.3 Color words
    In different languages, different division of colors are reflected in the color words, depending on people’s capacity for perceiving colors. People associate colors with different associations. For example, in English, green is associated with envy or jealous and blue is for sentimental or unhappy feelings.
9.4.4 Privacy and taboos
    Western people place high value on private information like family background, salary, age etc. It is advisable we should not talk about such topics in the conversation. Taboos are the utterance to be avoided in the communication. Although people of different culture have common areas of privacy or taboos, there are areas where cultural differences exist.
9.4.5 Rounding off numbers
     People in different cultures round off numbers differently. It is not haphazard, rather, it is explainable as interplay between language and culture. A example is the differences in expressing the age, in different culture systems.
9.4.6 Words and cultural-specific connotations
     Connotations are the implication of a word, apart from its primary meaning. Sometimes, the same word in different language environments may have different connotations.
  Semantic differences in different languages:
a.A term in a language may do not have a counterpart in another language.
b.Words or terms that appear to refer to the same thing on the surface may actually refer to different things
c.Things or concepts may be represented in one language by one term but may be represented in another language by more than one term.
d.Terms may have more or less the same primary meaning but have considerable different secondary meaning or additional meanings
9.4.7 Cultural-related idioms proverbs or metaphors (Omitted)
9.5 The significance of cultural teaching and learning
1.Since language is closely related to its culture, to learn a language is inseparable from learning its culture.
2.To learn a foreign language, we should not only learn the grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary etc. but also learn its people’s costumes beliefs etc.
3.We learn a culture of language in order to achieve not only linguistics competence but also communicative or pragmatic competence. In this way, we can communicate properly in the target language and there will not be misunderstandings.
9.6 Cultural overlap and diffusion:
   Despite cultural differences, there exist a grater degree of cultural overlap due to the similarities in natural environment and psychology of human beings.
★Culture diffusion
   Through communication, elements of culture A enter culture B and become part of culture B. This is called culture diffusion, which is shaped gradually and unceasingly. An example of cultural diffusion is loan words. To borrow a word is easier than to coin a new one. Although many languages borrowed through cultural diffusion, these words present their own grammatical structure.
★Culture imperialism and linguistics imperialism
  With the increasing cultural diffusion, it has been recognized the tendency of cultural imperialism and linguistics imperialism
linguistics imperialism:
  To promulgation of global ideologies through the worldwide expansion of one language.
linguistics nationalism:
  Some countries may adopt some policies to protect the purity of the native language. For example, France may has made special efforts to protect their language from being corrupted by other languages especially by English.
9.7 Intercultural communication
1.Intercultural communication, also known as cross cultural communication is a communication between people whose cultural perceptions and symbolic systems are distinct enough to alter the communication events
2.Intercultural communication refers to the communication between people from different cultures, implying a comparison between cultures
3.It centers on differences regarding social relations and concepts of the universe from different perspectives like language food etc.
4.Intercultural communication makes multi-disciplinary study of politeness cross culture in details and helps to bridge the gap between cultural and linguistics differences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Ten   Language Acquisition
10.1 Introduction
Language acquisition refers to the child’s acquisition of his mother tongue, i.e. how a child speaks and understands the language of his community
10.2 Theories of language acquisition
Generally speaking, there are three theories concerning how language is learned. The behaviorist the innatist and interactionist ★
1.Behaviorist view
Traditional behaviorist view believes that language acquisition is simply a matter of imitation and habits formation. In this theory, Imitation and practice are preliminary and discrimination and generalization are keys to language acquisition.
This theory explains how children acquire some of the regular and routine aspects of the language ,yet how they acquire more complex grammatical situation of a language requires another explanation.
2.Innatist view★★（乔姆斯基的理论要注意）
In order to solve the problem of behaviorist view, Chomskey hold the opinion that children are biologically programmed for language,and the innative ability is called LAD
LAD is an imaginary box in human brain which contains principles which are universal to all human languages. Children have to get access to samples of a natural language to activate LAD, which will help them to discover his language structures by matching the knowledge of the basic grammatical system to a particular language. This endowment is called Universal Grammar.
These points of view solve the logical problem, which the behaviorist failed to explain. Children acquire more about the structures of language than expected to acquire from the language samples due to the endowed UG
3.Interactionist view
Language develops as a result of the interplay between the human characterization of the child and the environment in which he develops his language. They claim that modified language (motherese or CDS), which is suitable to children’s capability, is important in language acquisition. This view shows how a child acquires language properly in language environment and declares that language samples have to be suitable.
10.3 Cognitive factors in child language acquisition
Cognitive factors are related to language acquisition in two ways:
 
a. Language development is dependant on both the concepts children form      
about the world and what stimulate them to communicate at the early age and later stages of their language.
      b. The cognitive factors determine how the child makes sense of linguistics system, instead of what meanings the child perceives and express.
10.4 Language environment and Critic Period Hypothesis
    All language acquisition theories talk about two factors to different degree, the linguistics environment and the age they started to learn the language.
    Language environment is the environment in which the children acquire their languages. In behaviorist view, language environment provides both models to be imitated and feedbacks, which are necessary in language acquisition. In innatist view, language environment provides language samples to activate UG.. In the interactionist view, the quality of language samples are emphasized. Language samples have to be justified to the level of children’s comprehension.
Critical Period Hypothesis★
The hypothesis, argued by Eric Lenneberg says that LAD works successfully only when it is stimulated at the right time---- a specific and limited time for language acquisition.
Two versions of CPH:
Strong Version: Children must acquire their first language by puberty or they will never be able to learn from subsequent exposure
Weak Version: Language learning will be difficult and incomplete after puberty.
10.5 Stages in child language development
10.5.1 Phonological development
       Children are born with an ability to discriminate and produce sounds, and the acquisition of sounds is universal to all languages. The sequence in which the language sounds are acquired works like a pre-requisite. [i:], [u:], [a:] are three basic vowels of the language world.
10.5.2 Vocabulary development
       The words uttered by babies between the age of nine and twelve months do not refer to any person. The adults can increase babbling but can not change the sounds the baby make. The children may over-extent or under-extent a concept, namely over-extension or under-extension.
     a. Over extension: When a child takes a property of an object and generalizes it. For example, a little child call anyone daddy
     b. Under extension: The denial of the fact that birds are animals
   10.5.3 grammatical development
         Around the age of 2, the children began to produce two words sentences and six months later, they begin to use syntactical structures.
        Telegraphic speech: The utterance which only contain content words but lack of the inflectional morphemes which mark tense, number, case or other category. The relationship between content words can be explained in different ways.
          The children acquire their first morphemes in a predictable order determined by linguistics complexity rather than the frequency of input
10.5.4 Pragmatic development
          Children acquire how to speak properly to different people in their speech community. For example, politeness, taboo words , proper style etc. Gender and politeness are important aspects. Children can respond to indirect request at the age of 3 and give indirect at elementary school age. They can hint at the age of eight.
10.6 Atypical development
          Atypical development is the abnormal level of language development due to trauma or injury. Not every child develops the language to a same level at the same age and perhaps the development will be delayed because of
        Hearing impairment (听力损伤)
        Mental retardation （智力障碍）
        Autism (自闭)
        Shuttering (口吃)
        Aphasia (失语症)
        Dyslexia (阅读障碍)
        Dysgraphia(书写障碍)

      
 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eleven   Second Language Acquisition
11.1 Introduction
Second language acquisition refers to the systematic study of how a person acquires a second language subsequent to their first language. Whether the target language is learned as second language or foreign language depend on the status of the target language.
11.2 Connections between first language acquisition and second language acquisition
A.Connections:
First language acquisition and second language acquisition are connected both at theatrical and practical level.
A.New findings on first language acquisition especially in learning theories and learning process are illuminating in understanding second language acquisition.
B.The techniques to collect and analyze data in first language acquisition provides insights in the study of second language acquisition.
B.Differences:
The second language learners cannot attain the native-like competence. The language they produce is fossilized at a certain level.
The experts relate the fossilization of the interlanguage to the learners’ partial or not access to UG., or they can not achieve the UG in the way the native speaker do and therefore, the language is short of native-like proficiency. 
11.3 Constrative analysis (CA)
According to behaviorist view, second language acquisition is the
development of a new set of habits. The native language is significant because it is the major cause for lacking of success in SLA. Positive transfer facilitates SLA and negative transfer interfere it.
  CA, came into fashion in the 1960s analyze the differences between NL and TL on forms and meanings to predicate the differences in acquisition. Later, the analysis is criticized to be problematic because the predicted difficulties based on CA did not materialize and the errors that haven’t been predicted show up. This show that differences and difficulties are different concepts. This analysis is gradually replaced by EA (Error Analysis)
11.4 Error Analysis (EA)
      The errors are significant in foreign language learning because they tell readers what to teach.
      Step One: Error analysis involves first independently or objectively in describing the learner’s interlanguage.
      Step Two : The error analysis compare interlanguage and target language to find mismatches. Error analysis pays less attention to native language. This theory replaced CA in the late 1960s and entered its heyday in the 1970s.
        In categorization of errors, two main sorts of errors are distinct, interlingual errors and intralingual errors
A.Interlingual errors: These interlingual errors mainly result from cross-linguistics interference at different levels, such as lexical, grammatical or syntactical. Two examples are as follows:
a.substitution of [t] for[ϑ] [d] for [ð] this→dis
b.Shorting of long vowels sheep→ship
B.Intralingual errors: These intralingual errors result from faulty or partial learning of target language, independent from native language. Overgeneralization and Cross-association are examples of intralingual errors
Overgeneralization: to use previous available strategies in new situations
           Cross-association: The users may feel confused about the words which have similar meanings, pronunciations etc. like other/another; much/many etc. This internal interferences are called cross-associations
▲Distinction between mistakes and errors
Error: unintentionally deviant from the target language and are not self-corrigible, which suggest the failure of competence
Mistakes: Either intentionally or unintentionally deviant from target language and are self-corrigible which suggest the failure of performance
   This division brought up to performance analysis      
Critics on EA: a. Neglect learner’s non-errors
b. Lacking of predicative power 
          c. Subjectivity of its interpretation of errors
11.5 Interlanguage
a.This concept is proposed by S.Pit.Corder and Larry Selinker. Interlanguage can be defined as learners’ independent system of second language which is neither target language nor native language, but a approximate from NL to TL
b.Features of interlanguage: systematicity permeability fossilization 
c.Fossilization is the process that incorrect linguistics features become a permanent part of the way a person speaks and writes.  Fossilization can occur at any level and that of pronunciation contributes to one’s foreign accent. The cause of fossilization are willing to maintain identity, satisfaction of communicative needs, quality of input or influence of native language etc. Fossilization is gaining increasing attention
11.6 The role of native language in SLA
    1. Language transfer
     Language transfer: The learners’ use of prior linguistics information or physical carryover native language surface to a second language context.
a.Positive transfer: refers to the positive influence of cognitive vocabulary or any other similarities between the native and target language
b.Negative Transfer: is no more than the term interference, in which L1 interferes with L2 learning where differences exit between L1 and L2.
    2. Behaviorist view
        The behaviorists ascribe errors largely to the influence of learners’ native language. Their developed language habits prevent them from formed habits. Based on this theory, CA is the analysis between TL and NL, which predicates difficulties in language learning
    3. Mentalists play down the role of first language
    4.Interlanguage theory: This theory put first language back to the picture and studied it from cognitive perspective. Learners use first language to formulate second language hypothesis. In this sense, native language functions as a kind of input from inside and transfer is a kind of mental process
    5. Recent study: The interacting factors in determining language transfers are: a. learners’ psychology   b. perception of native-target distances  c. actual knowledge of target language 
11.7 Second language learning model and input hypothesis
     Kranshen’s input hypothesis is the most famous models for second language acquisition.
     A. Kranshen assumed that there are two independent meanings of second language learning: acquisition and learning
      a. Acquisition is a process similar to the way children acquire their first language .It is a subconscious process without learning grammatical rules. In acquisition, learners hardly aware of learning but they are using language to communicate.
b.  Learning is a conscious process of learning the second language by learning the rules and talking about the rules
B. Input Hypothesis:★
The language learners advance their learning of language by receiving comprehensible input
Comprehensible input is defined as i+1,i represent the learners’ current knowledge and i+1 is the next. By providing comprehensible input which is higher than the learners’ current level, the learners’ LAD will be activated and thus contribute to acquisition
11.8 Individual differences★
    Individual differences are factors that can not be ignored. These factors can be generalized into several categories: language aptitude, motivation, learning strategies, age of acquisition and personalities
1.Language aptitude:
It is learners’ natural ability to acquire a second language and it is believed to related to learners’ intelligence.  Components of language aptitude are phonemic coding ability, inductive language learning ability, rote learning ability etc. Those who get high marks in aptitude test learn rapidly and achieve high proficiency in SLA.
2.Motivation :It is defined as learners’ attitude and affective state or learning drive. Types of motivation:
a.Instrumental motivation: Learners learn a language for external goals, such as to pass an examination or further a career.
b.Integrative motivation: Learners learn a foreign language because they wish to identify with the target culture
c.Resultative motivation: Learners learn a foreign language for external purposes
d.Intrinsic motivation: Learners learn a foreign language for pleasure or enjoyment from learning.
3.Learning strategies: Learners’ conscious, goal-obtained and problem-solving based efforts to achieve learning efficiency. Motivations play an important role in the learners’ use of learning strategies
Types of strategies:
a.Cognitive strategies: strategies involved in analyzing ,synthesis and internalizing what have been learnt.
b.Matecognitive strategies: The techniques in planning, monitoring or evaluating one’s learning
c.Affect/Social strategies: dealing with the way the learners communicate with other speakers ,native or non-native.
Cohen further distinguished language learning strategies and language using strategies. Language learning strategies includes: strategies to identify the material to be learnt, distinguishing it from others, grouping it for easier learning, committing material to the memory etc. Language using strategies includes retrieval, rehearsal cover and communication strategies
4.Age of acquisition
Most study results support the hypothesis that in terms of learning achievements and grammaticality ,the younger learners outperform the adults. One must bear in mind that the objective to learn a second language is not to achieve the native-like proficiency and there must be other factors to determine the achievement in language acquisition besides age.
5.Personality
A number of characteristics have been proposed likely to affect second language learning but it is very difficult to demonstrate the effects in the study.
In terms of communicative ability rather than grammatical accuracy or knowledge of grammar rules, the personality traits such as extroversion, talkative, self-esteem, self-confidence can be found in a good second language learner
11.9 Second language acquisition and its pedagogical implications（Omitted）: